Sunday, May 23, 2010

Mavis got a response. And, surprisingly, it was well-written and bereft of any egregious grammatical mistakes. And, more surprisingly, it seems like the guy CARES!

Matt,

I am sorry that your game was cancelled on Thursday; let me assure you that every effort is made to play these softball games. Decisions have to be made much sooner than one hour prior to a game because of people driving from Lagrange, Fort Knox, Shepherdsville, etc.. I apologize for the way past administration has handled softball rainouts, in September our athletics division was restructured and new people are now running the office. The new administration does not like to see games called due to inclement weather, it is in everyone’s best interest to ensure these games are played whenever possible. The problem in the past has been that athletics hasn’t had the ability to provide maintenance for the fields because of a lack of access to resources. The ball field maintenance divisions day ends at 3 30 and athletics doesn’t have access to tools or storage at the fields to be able to work on the fields ourselves in order to get them ready. Nobody was more disappointed than I when we couldn’t play yesterday, but without access to rakes, dirt, rollers, chalk, etc… we were not able to do anything to the field. You are correct, with a little care we could have easily played last night at Camp Taylor. However, I do disagree with you that the field was playable without care. The field was not in playable condition with out getting raked and having some dirt work done. Stones were exposed because the field was dragged and prepped earlier in the day and then the rain packed the dirt down and stones stayed on top of the surface.

It is ironic that you emailed us today because yesterday I had a conversation with my boss about getting some resources in place in order to salvage play any chance we could moving forward. I recognized this was a problem after yesterday and have taken the necessary steps to get protocol in place so we are maximizing the three hours of field recovery time between when our grounds department quits and the games start.

I am sorry you were disappointed in the way things were done in the past, but I can assure you moving forward we will do everything we can to get these games played on schedule. Just remember that it is never up to the league members when ball games should be cancelled. We will always have the final say in this matter. However, we do agree with some of the things you have said and we appreciate you taking the time to voice your opinion/concerns. I can assure you every effort will be made to ensure you get the games you paid for.

Also, I heard your team sucks and you are the worst pitcher in the world.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Over the past several years, my friends and I have really enjoyed playing softball at Camp Taylor. I do not live for softball or anything like that, but it is about 10 nights a year I really look forward to. That is why I was very disappointed yesterday when I found out that the Thursday night games had been rained out.

I called 456-8117 and talked to the young man who called the game. He said he called the game at 3:15 because there was standing water and no way the field could be ready. If you do not remember, it rained about 11:30, the sun immediately came out, and the high was in the mid-80's. The games do not start until 6:30.

Attached are pictures I took of the field at 5:15. As you can see, the field was mostly dry, but a little wet (not even muddy) between 2nd and 3rd. The field was extremely playable with 1 hour 15 minutes left to dry before the first game was scheduled.

I would not make an issue of this had it been the first time this exact scenario had occurred. Many times, games have just not been made up at all and the season fizzles, with no hint of a refund. Or, the emergency plan put is to schedule several doubleheaders on a Saturday in which most people have made plans well in advance for their weekends. Everyone's Thursday evenings are relatively open, that's why we chose that night. With 8 teams scheduled to play, around 100 families schedules are affected, and a vast majority want to play on Thursday and look forward to it all week.

If the young man could check the field around 3:15 and see some standing water, even with no concept that the water may evaporate, he could get a broom or rake and spend a few minutes getting the field prepared. Some effort in playing games when precipitation falls during the day would be nice. In seven years of playing Metro Parks softball, I have seen little. The policy should be to err on the side of playing and deal with a little moisture, not treat the moisture as an excuse for a night off.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

To give a little background on this story, I teach at an alternative high school in an unnamed outlying county bordering Louisville, Kentucky. Here is some hints on which one it is: meth and child molesting. Without going into too much detail, my students are 15 or 16 year old 7th and 8th graders who for whatever reason have not been able to cut it in regular school. We can all remember the level of difficulty of seventh and eighth grade academics, with the adding and subtracting and differentiating nouns from not nouns. Pretty much all you have to do is show up, spit on your paper, put your name on it, and not be a total asshole. Essentially, it is a bunch of kids who are a cross between Jethro Bodine and a wannabe Mashall Mathers. It is kind of a tough job, I guess, being that it is not the kitchen at Taco Bell or answering complaint calls in a cubicle. The kids have a wide variety of reasons they are there, ranging from living with child molesters, having their houses burned down by their father’s while they are in them, and just plain poor DNA and being really fucking lazy.

I had this class going pretty well and I have an assistant, but to my surprise, one random day in October, I had some 23 year old kid from Americorps show up, saying that he was there to help. I really had zero idea of what to do with him. He was given an office, which I felt was slightly weird and unfair. I mean, who the fuck was he? I was in my seventh year teaching and an office was totally out of the question for me. I told him to just hang out in the room and help students when they needed some type of assistance, which allowed me more time to play on the internet. He was weird, but I figured another adult in the room could not hurt.

One of the first things I noticed that was peculiar was that he constantly dug into his ears. It was one of the most gross and disgusting things I have ever seen. He did it to the point that his skin was peeling out of his ears and they were turning all red. You might be thinking the skin peeling and the redness were part of the symptoms, and I would agree. However, he was totally causing the symptoms.

Then he started telling me all about himself, and everything he said was a total, knowable, provable, unnecessary lie. Andrew, which is his name, lied about everything from what he had for breakfast, what route he took to drive to school, what mundane thing he did the night before, and it turns out, what he had been doing the first 23 years of his life. We have all dealt with or run across an habitual lawyer at one time in our lives. They all tell crazy unnecessary shit that gets bolder and bolder with time. The first couple of lies, before you know that there is a real issue, just seem really impressive, mostly due to the fact that you have no real reason to not believe him. Andrew told me that he quit an $95,000 a year job to join Americorps (turns out he just graduated from ReedCollege in Oregon in May). It was a bit much, and I figured a little exaggerated, but whatever, everyone stretches the truth a little sometimes. A few weeks later, he had to leave school early to fly to England to read a paper that was “accepted to Oxford”. Impressive, maybe true, but my lying antenna was activated. Rather than carry on for pages about each lie he subsequently told, I will list them.

2)He had to drive said girlfriend to D.C. during the biggest snow storm on record so she could help pass health reform.

3)He had to drive a couple of congressmen to Frankfort to meet with the legislator, so he had to miss his rugby game, being played at Iroquois . The game was to decide the regional championship and was being played against the Cleveland Flees. A quick internet search revealed that his team was playing in Dayton, not Louisville, and their home games are played in CherokeePark.

4)He drove the car from Gone in 60 Seconds.

5)He was in the movie “Into the Wild”.

6)He played college baseball (his school, ReedCollege, has no college baseball team).

7)He was approved for a mortgage based on “projected future education and income”.

8)He was moving to a sweet condo in DC that he was buying with his girlfriend.

9)They were going to get married strictly for financial reasons if the offer for the condo was accepted.

10)His girlfriend’s name is Caroline.

11)His girlfriend’s name is Sophie.

12)He has a girlfriend.

What is sad about this guy and others like him is that they would be okay if they would just stop. People don’t care what you do, what douchey great school accepted you, what senator your dad knows, etc. We all know a pretentions homo who went somewhere like Duke or Vandy and loves to tell everyone all about their crazy stories.
On a separate but kind of related note, people don’t want to hear about the different types of bourbon and fine beers you like. If you describe any drink as having a smoky or oaky aroma, you are total phony douche fag. Nothing beyond claiming that you are the new, improved Jesus and then proving it by flying is really going to be super interesting or impressive.